Breaking The Paradigm

When I was young in my early 20’s I had a great management position with a retail store group that I thought was my dream job. Then, out of the blue, I was offered an opportunity to become a partner in a new retail franchise that was coming into my area.

I decided to risk everything, quit my job and go all in! Most people including my family thought I was crazy, especially since I had recently purchased my first townhouse and had a large mortgage.  But it all worked out and it turned out to be one of the best decisions I have ever made.

I didn’t realize it at the time, that I was breaking my paradigm.

What do I mean about breaking the paradigm?

Over the years, all of us have developed certain assumptions, beliefs, attitudes, etc., that really do not help us but in fact hold us back, limit our potential, and stop us from achieving what we really want to achieve in life.

Some of these things are in our sub-conscious, but many are as obvious as the nose on our face. For example, staying in our comfort zone demonstrates an assumption that we cannot do something different; or an attitude of ‘settling’ which significantly limits our growth; or maybe it’s a belief that we are not worthy of so much more which makes us quit before we even start.

So we live inside our paradigm. Day in and day out. Trapped.  And the only reason we stay there is because of us, no one else.  Some of us are happy to stay there and will be for the rest of our lives.

However in today’s world, it is YOU that stops you from being something else and from breaking out of it.

Are you in such a state? 

If so, would you not want to break the paradigm? Then what does it take to break the paradigm?

Well it begins with a desire, an attitude to change yourself. This means challenging and changing your current beliefs. For example, if you believe that you are not smart enough to do something you will never attempt to do it. 

So believe you can!  Believe the opposite of what you believe now!

Most of us grow up being chastised for failing whether it was in school or work. So we believe failure is bad and try to avoid it.  But understand that failure is good.  Failure teaches what success cannot.

Edison failed 10,000 times attempting to invent the light bulb.  But he never gave up.  He learned from each failure, until eventually he succeeded.

We believe that the way to success is to work harder.  We get told we have to work harder, study harder, to get ahead. In fact, if we are doing the wrong things, then working or studying harder will not achieve what we want.  We can work 16 hours a day, but if we don’t accomplish anything, it is wasted time. 

As stated by Price Pritchett, Author and Expert on corporate culture, mergers, process and change, “More of the same usually gives you more of the same.”

So we need to get out of the insanity of the same old thinking and conventions that are running our life.  As Albert Einstein once said  ’the definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results.” 

You must do something unconventional!

I remember when I decided to leave my corporate position, so I could be a home-based business entrepreneur. It was unconventional at the time and risky, but my gut was telling me all will be OK. Even though I didn’t know how, I knew that I would replace my income in a short period of time. Well, it took just over a year to reach that goal, with many challenges, but I just knew I had to do it. Today, my income has exceeded my wildest dreams because of the risk I took years ago.  

So, we need to take a chance, a risk, to act on something, an opportunity that has been staring us in the face for a very long time. This means moving outside your comfort zone. This is about giving yourself a chance to achieve your potential, not taking a chance.  Its about challenging the odds against you that exist in your mind.

So to break the paradigm, change your attitude, accept that failure may happen along the way, do the unconventional, not the same old, same old, and take a risk by challenging the odds.

By doing so you will break out and achieve so much more!